do we have to hear that the planet will explode before we get a nice bear drop ?

hard to get any leverage here.

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I think all shorts may want to consider that the bias for the next several months is going to be up. I don't want to discourage shorts, because they do provide lots of liquidity and good pricing for longs like myself, but there is lots of money sitting in Treasuries at 0%, that will surely move into corporate bonds and equities over the next few months. Plus there is that $1 trillion that the government is going to pour in. That is a lot of money. Just a thought.

and this is exactly why it is hard to go short today or anytime in the next month or two.

Quote from richrf:

I think all shorts may want to consider that the bias for the next several months is going to be up. I don't want to discourage shorts, because they do provide lots of liquidity and good pricing for longs like myself, but there is lots of money sitting in Treasuries at 0%, that will surely move into corporate bonds and equities over the next few months. Plus there is that $1 trillion that the government is going to pour in. That is a lot of money. Just a thought.

IF it were not for Trillions of dollars worth of bailout money the markets would be 50% lower right now from where they trade today, all they do is throw money at the problem which I will say again will be a major problem when people realize WTF is really going on, where is the free market???

I don't think it is the government. Booms and busts can be traced back hundreds if not thousands of years. There are scammers in this world and there are scammees. Scammees think that they can make a fortune buying tulips. Scammers, work out a Ponzi scheme to feed this dream. When the house of cards falls, it falls big.

It is possible, to somewhat control the scammers, via good regulations. The U.S. had such regulations, dating back to the Great Depression, which prevent huge Ponzi schemes. Unfortunately, an ill-informed President, who never reads newspapers or history books, and gets his information from Right Wing talk radio mouthpieces for scammers, decided he would dismantle all Ponzi regulating schemes, allowing the scammers to run wild for eight years. Hence, our house of cards has fallen.

Bottom line, and this is a very good history, you don't allow banks (whose money is Federally insured to prevent bank runs like in the 1930s) lend hundreds of thousands of dollars to people who have no skin in the game, and no intention of paying the money back - because they can't. The scammers get the money and the public gets the shaft.

Also, you don't allow S&P, Moody's and Fitch to rate bonds, because they are paid off by the scammers. In any case, no one believes the ratings anymore (especially overseas investors), so we have everyone running into Treasuries. What a mess these "free market" scammers have caused. All because they can't get enough money so they can travel to somewhere, for some reason, or buy some piece of junk for some reason.

IF it were not for Trillions of dollars worth of bailout money the markets would be 50% lower right now from where they trade today, all they do is throw money at the problem which I will say again will be a major problem when people realize WTF is really going on, where is the free market???

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I think we need to be clear on something. It is not the goal of our country or our government to allow chaos to take form so that a few shorts, sitting in front of a tube, can make some money. Our goal (most of us who voted for Obama and McCain), is to provide an orderly process to get ourselves out of the economic mess, rebuild savings and our economic structure, and provide place to live for ourselves and our children.

Obama is very competent (as would have been McCain), and I am quite confident, that monetary and fiscal policies will be put in place, to soften the blows, and give our country time to rebuild. My son is graduating this year, and he like millions of other people, need jobs. This is the goal of our government, and I think it is a sensible one. Much better than the previous administration.

If a few shorts, are disappointed. I am sorry. You will just have to go long - or get another job, if you do not know how to go long.